Memberships & Affiliations: Driving technology
in the computer industry

For more than 25 years Phoenix has led the evolution of x86 computing from the earliest beginnings to today's high powered systems, ranging from ATMs to mobile computers and everything in between. Phoenix has always provided brand name PC manufacturers with the Core Systems Software integrity needed to transform generations of silicon components from hundreds of providers into industry standard devices.

Phoenix encourages and fosters innovation throughout the industry by leading and contributing to a wide range of standards and specifications groups. As the world's leading Core Systems Software and OS independent applications, provider, we view standards as an important way to drive innovation, create new technologies and develop industry ecosystems. By driving the standards behind new products and technologies, we ensure the delivery of interoperability, adding value and differentiation while increasing x86 system dependability and manageability.

Standards Bodies

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ACPI - Advanced Configuration and Power management Interface between BIOS and OS (primarily Windows, soon to be used by Linux as well)

Relevance: ACPI is the primary interface allowing the BIOS to implement OS policy with regard to power management, and allows the OS to discover the details of machine configuration that were implemented by the BIOS during system start-up.

Phoenix Role: PTL has been centrally involved in all three generations of ACPI, and is one of the five "promoters" defining the specification for the ACPI 3.0 project.

Araphoe Work Group - Technology incubator that developed 3GIO (which became PCI Express) and the Advanced Switching Specification

Relevance: This important technology-incubation group will influence the shape and direction of upcoming technologies that will drive the future architecture of the PC, as well as other industries such as telecommunications.

Phoenix Role: As a Key Developer, Phoenix is able to review and influence new specifications many months before they are made available to the industry at large.

CE Linux Forum - The Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF) is focusedon the advancement of Linux as an open source platform for consumerelectronics (CE) devices.

Relevance: Today, as generic PCs are used more and more for embeddedapplications, there is an even greater need to establish a consistentboot environment in order to realize time savings, bothfrom boot time and development perspectives. As technology evolves, itiseven more important to ensure that standards are followed in order tomaintain consistency, compatibility and user experience. With themultitudeof PCs and devices in the market it is imperative that a consistent APIbeprovided to the high level software.

Phoenix Role: Phoenix holds the Chair position of the Boot TechnologyWorking Group (BTWG). This group determines areas of core importancewith respect to Boot technologies for the embedded space, developscustoms Boot tools and reviews open source tools.

DMTF - Standards for Remote Management

Relevance: DMTF specifications such as DMI and SMBIOS spell out core firmware functions that allow a system to be compatible with a range of remote-management solutions, such as Tivoli and HP OpenView.

Phoenix Role: Phoenix participates in the DMTF work groups relevant to core system software and uses the advance information gained there to bring compliant firmware products to market at the earliest possible date.

DVD Forum - Standards for DVD players

Relevance: Phoenix's Information Appliance products implement eDVD capabilities, allowing a seamless blending of static disc content with real-time, on-line content and promotions.

Phoenix Role: Phoenix is a participant and voting member of several technical work groups and the general forum membership.

GGF - Standards for Grid Computing

Relevance: Grid computing is poised to emerge as a transformative technology, changing the computing landscape both within corporate data centers and in the home.

Phoenix Role: Phoenix is a Silver Sponsor of the Global Grid Forum and a participant in various work groups.

iVDR - Japanese consortium securing content onto portable hard drives

Relevance: Support for this emerging Japanese standard encourages strong relationships with a variety of leading Consumer Electronics companies and better positions our products for the converged world of media content and computing devices.

Phoenix Role: Phoenix is one of the founding members of this group and is working actively to help define the specification.

Liberty Alliance - Security standards (led by Sun Microsystems)

Relevance: Phoenix believes in non-partisan support of all economically relevant standards.

Phoenix Role: Our participation in the Liberty Alliance is an example of the impartial support we provide for an array of security standards.

PCI-SIG - the primary I/O bus for on-board PC devices and plug-in cards

Relevance: One of the prime tasks of BIOS is to locate all PCI devices and assign resources to them so they can function. The final action of BIOS's Power-On Self-Test phase is to boot the operating system, and the boot device is almost always a PCI device.

Phoenix Role: Phoenix is a member of the PCI-SIG Steering Committee and Board of Directors, and makes major contributions to many of the technical working groups.

T13 Committee - Standards for ATA-style hard drives (the typical drives in a PC)

Relevance: Phoenix has authored numerous specifications and enhancements that have been adopted by the hard-drive manufacturers and the PC industry.

Phoenix Role: These specifications have greatly improved the PC end-user experience while enlarging the market space for Phoenix and its products. One example is the Host Protected Area specification, authored by Phoenix, which opened the door for Phoenix's FirstWare and cME product lines. Another example is the "El Torito" specification, which allows PC's to boot from CD-ROM's.

TCG - Trusted Computing Group - the new group creating security standards for the PC

Relevance: TCG is carrying forward the work started by TCPA. As the PC becomes more of a media and communications platform, enhanced security will be key enabler of new uses such as the real-time distribution and protection of Hollywood content. Phoenix is the only company whose core system software offerings combine traditional BIOS functions and firmware-based security products.

Phoenix Role: Phoenix is an original contributing member of TCG. We participate in all the technical work groups.

TCPA - Standards for Trusted Computing (secure PC's). Now superceded by TCG

Relevance: PC security has grown in importance over the last several years. It is now crucial to the future expansion of the PC market.

Phoenix Role: Phoenix has been a contributing member of TCPA from the beginning.

The Unified EFI Forum - promoting and managing the UEFI standard

Relevance: UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) will be a specification detailing an interface that helps hand off control of the system from the pre-boot environment to an operating system. As an evolving standard, the UEFI specification is driven by contributions and support from member companies of the UEFI Forum.

Phoenix Role: Phoenix is one of nine initial companies that formed the board of UEFI.

USB-IF - The Implementer's Forum for the USB standard

Relevance: USB is the most important data bus for attaching external peripherals to PC systems. During system start-up, Phoenix's BIOS must initialize and interact with many USB devices, such as keyboards, mice, hard drives, and floppy drives.

Phoenix Role: Phoenix's active role in the USB-IF allows us to produce compatible and timely support for USB devices and standards.